topic Re: Easements in the Fabric in State & Local Government Questions

Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:27:46 GMT

Hey all,

Just wondering who is managing easements (or thinking about it) inside of a fabric. We are trying to set up a workflow for doing this (test fabric for now) and have some questions. If you are managing easements/Encumbrances inside of the fabric are you doing it as a closed polyline or as polygons? The geometry type completely changes the workflow for how you incorporate easements into the fabric. We are testing both, and are finding that if we do it as a polygon, the fabric will not join the polygon to the existing (joined) parcel points or line points, it will only do it do a recognized control point. Has anyone experienced this? Every data model I've seen does not include easements as part of the fabric so I'm wondering if it is "industry standard" to manage this information outside of the fabric. Any thoughts/ideas would be greatly helpful. Thanks!

Re: Easements in the Fabric

ScottOppmann — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:49:40 GMT

Nick -

We've deployed a template on the Local Government Resource Center that will help you organize easements (and other parcel types like subs, lots, PLSS, etc.) in the fabric. Here is a link to the template: http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=9d5d357e7bf54c27878f3737ade128da.

The key part of this design is a domain called parcel type and a series of layers in the ArcMap editing document derived from it. The parcel type domain allows you to interact with specific parcels (subs, lots, tax parcels and/or easements) and their related attributes in the map.

You may want to track additional information about easements in your model and you can do that with extended attributes on the fabric.

Hope this helps.

Scott
arcgisteamlocalgov@esri.com

Re: Easements in the Fabric

davidvan_pelt — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 15:11:27 GMT

The City of Encintas is managing all easements and other encumbrances in the Fabric as Polygons. It is generally working quite well. We have added a few exteded attributes such as Easement width, Recording Number, and a "Grant To" field.

If you have specific questions we could talk or post any specific questions to this forum.

Thanks & Good Luck!

David

Re: Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:18:17 GMT

The City of Encintas is managing all easements and other encumbrances in the Fabric as Polygons. It is generally working quite well. We have added a few exteded attributes such as Easement width, Recording Number, and a "Grant To" field.

If you have specific questions we could talk or post any specific questions to this forum.

Thanks & Good Luck!

David

Thanks David,

Its great to have the dialogue with other city/county government people who are working with the fabric to manage their land records information. I do have some follow-up questions for you. Specifically with easements, how do you guys incorporate an easement that just has the centerline information on the plat? I've tried to use the offset functions in the traverse environment but it doesn't seem to be very consistent. Is this the purpose for having the width field (I really like that idea)? Also, how long have you guys been working with the fabric to manage your information. It doesn't seem as though there are many out there who are using the fabric quite yet, at least in our part of the country.

Have you guys been running into anything that has been giving you any issues? We are still in the testing phases and are finding some buggy things with how the fabric stores and saves each 'construction' and then when you re-open the construction the line-points are all missing and it gives you some major errors. So basically we are still trying to work this whole thing out and any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Re: Easements in the Fabric

davidvan_pelt — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 15:44:13 GMT

Hi Nick,

We have been using the Fabric since the begining (9.2 sp3 I think it was). We did not migrate any data, we cogo'd everthing in from the source documents.

For centerline easements, we will mark the traverse as 'Unclosed = True' if we don't take the time to build them into a polygon - you are correct, sometime this can be problematic. Having the width provides a way of documenting the width when the polygon is not built out. Width was also added for end user application purposes.

There are bugs for sure!! We work around them the best we can, I would not go into production until Sp 1 is released. There are outstanding issues we need to resolve with ESRI but I'm waiting to get SP1 to see what issues might get cleared up with that first.

Regards, David

Re: Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 16:39:29 GMT

David (and all who will listen),

I'm coming accross a very distinct issue with joining parcels (via the construction work flow) into a fabric:

- I complete the platted COGO as to what I believe to be a closed polygon with proper distance and bearing info.

- I then chose the "build and keep current" option to begin the joining process.

- I complete the proper "links" within the new construction job either linking them to some sort of control point or established point already connected to a parcel.

- I then accept or ok those links and the parcel joins to the fabric, (this is where the problem occurs) but the parcel is no longer recognized as a polygon but is only joined as a series of connected lines. Another strange thing is that inside the 'parcels' attribute table there is an actual feature for this new parcel however there is no area calculation. Also I cannot actually delete these lines or even re-open the parcel to unjoin it.

I'm hoping someone has experienced this issue and can provide some guidance. Thanks!

Re: Easements in the Fabric

ChrisBuscaglia — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 17:17:52 GMT

A couple questions:

Did the parcel close? In other words, the initial start point (POB) match the end point?

Are you trying to create an un-closed parcel, or a closed loop?

Can you send (attach) the Cadastral XML file for the new parcel?

Thanks

Chris

Re: Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:06:16 GMT

David,

I was hoping we could speak via a telephone call so that we could possibly discuss some other questions I have regarding how your organization treats easements inside of the fabric. Would you mind sending me the number to your office line? You can reach me at nickk@ci.gillette.wy.us. I would really appreciate a conversation with you. Thanks!

Nick Kenczka
GIS Specialist
City of Gillette, WY

Re: Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 20:18:15 GMT

For those who are managing their easement data inside a parcel fabric, I was hoping to find out the work flow you've developed for this information. We are looking to do the same, however, we are finding it difficult to figure out how to implement the easements without having to do them in short, segments. Ideally, we would like to make one entire easement polygon for each easement type, in each subdivision and are having difficulty doing so. Has anyone else run into this problem?

Another question we've been having is what exactly the best approach to entering in easements would be. The ESRI help information provides 'some' guidance in the line categories explaining that easements should be dependant lines, but from what I've seen this method will not produce a unique parcel type for extraction from the fabric. A second method would be to enter in the easements as boundary lines, the issue with this method is that the easements would be used in the fabric adjustments and that is not good, due to easements not being survey level measurements. Chris do you have any guidance on this?

Thanks!

Nick Kenczka
GIS Specialist
City of Gillette, WY

Re: Easements in the Fabric

ChrisBuscaglia — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 23:30:49 GMT

Easement are important, if you have all the information for them. I've found that many tax-assessment shops rarely track them. The County clerk/recorder would have to store them for easy retrieval and a deed examiner route them to the mapping office. Easements are easily managed when they are included on new subdivisions and merge and split deed descriptions, but harder when recorded with straight-transfer and other documents.

With that being said, if you have easements and would like them to be included, they are best suited for the "encumbrance" layer as parcels if you use the local government GDB and Parcel Editing template.

And to answer your question about accuracy...they need to have a low accuracy weighting for the Least-Squares adjustment (Fabric Adjustment or LSA). I would give them a "6" accuracy, or maybe even a "7". Accuracy 6 will have little or no influence on the LSA and Accuracy 7 will be excluded completely from any Fabric adjustment.

Hope this helps.

Chris

Re: Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 21:50:34 GMT

Easement are important, if you have all the information for them. I've found that many tax-assessment shops rarely track them. The County clerk/recorder would have to store them for easy retrieval and a deed examiner route them to the mapping office. Easements are easily managed when they are included on new subdivisions and merge and split deed descriptions, but harder when recorded with straight-transfer and other documents.

With that being said, if you have easements and would like them to be included, they are best suited for the "encumbrance" layer as parcels if you use the local government GDB and Parcel Editing template.

And to answer your question about accuracy...they need to have a low accuracy weighting for the Least-Squares adjustment (Fabric Adjustment or LSA). I would give them a "6" accuracy, or maybe even a "7". Accuracy 6 will have little or no influence on the LSA and Accuracy 7 will be excluded completely from any Fabric adjustment.

Hope this helps.

Chris

Chris,

Any idea as to how we could create each easement/encumbrance as a single polygon instead of a series of small polygons. We are finding that with the irregularity of the shapes (culdesacs/lot lines/etc.) that it is difficult to build these as one polygon. Hope that is clear enough. Thanks!

Re: Easements in the Fabric

ChristineLeslie — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:51:08 GMT

Nick, have you tried using the Construct from parent command on multiple parcels? See this link
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Creating_new_parcels_from_multiple_existing_parcels/001t000003z5000000/

Now in the above link in the screenshots, I selected those 4 parcels, and did a Construct from parent. I then used the Parallel Offset command to offset a construction line to represent the split line I will use to create the easement. I then marked the internal lines Unbuildable (dont want to use those lines as split lines). Then I built the parcels, keeping all of them current. Now this process will build two parcels, one on either side of the split line - just delete the parcel you dont want and keep the easement parcel you do want.

Does this help?
Christine

Re: Easements in the Fabric

ChrisBuscaglia — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 02:43:08 GMT

Nick, have you tried using the Construct from parent command on multiple parcels? See this link
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Creating_new_parcels_from_multiple_existing_parcels/001t000003z5000000/

Now in the above link in the screenshots, I selected those 4 parcels, and did a Construct from parent. I then used the Parallel Offset command to offset a construction line to represent the split line I will use to create the easement. I then marked the internal lines Unbuildable (dont want to use those lines as split lines). Then I built the parcels, keeping all of them current. Now this process will build two parcels, one on either side of the split line - just delete the parcel you dont want and keep the easement parcel you do want.

Does this help?
Christine

Christine is correct and think that this would be a great approach, let us know if it works as you would expect...

Re: Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:52:40 GMT

Nick, have you tried using the Construct from parent command on multiple parcels? See this link
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Creating_new_parcels_from_multiple_existing_parcels/001t000003z5000000/

Now in the above link in the screenshots, I selected those 4 parcels, and did a Construct from parent. I then used the Parallel Offset command to offset a construction line to represent the split line I will use to create the easement. I then marked the internal lines Unbuildable (dont want to use those lines as split lines). Then I built the parcels, keeping all of them current. Now this process will build two parcels, one on either side of the split line - just delete the parcel you dont want and keep the easement parcel you do want.

Does this help?
Christine

Hey Christine,

Yes that does help in terms of providing a different method (from what I was looking at anyways) for implementing easements. And, for the most part, it seems to be a pretty good way of looking at the work flow. However, when it comes down to it I am still having two major issues in terms of finalizing a good work flow for implementing easements:

1- Due to many plats having complex shapes such as culdesacs, see image attachment, I am having to create the easements in short segements. Also, most of the tools available seem to not be able to address the complex features in a straight forward way.

2- Once I have completed the construction of an easement, I would like to merge all of the short segments into one polygon representing the easement type. For example, if there is a general utility easement that spans accross multiple lots in multiple directions throughout a single block, I would like the ability to merge that easement into one polygon for simplicity. I'm not finding a way to do this. I've tried the merge parcels tool and it doesn't seem to like the fact that I'm trying to merge the easement polygons together.

I've attached to images that hopefully explain the problems I'm having a little better. If not, please e-mail me at nick.kenczka@ci.gillette.wy.us and hopefully we can get something figured out. Thanks!

Nick Kenczka
GIS Specialist
City of Gillette, WY

Re: Easements in the Fabric

ChristineLeslie — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:41:56 GMT

Ok, based on your attached images, I can see what you are trying to do. I will take a look and see if there is a valid workflow out there to facilitate the easement you are trying to create. Definately looks like you will be wanting to work with a "donut" polygon for your easement that spans many parcels in different directions

Re: Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 21:33:46 GMT

Ok, based on your attached images, I can see what you are trying to do. I will take a look and see if there is a valid workflow out there to facilitate the easement you are trying to create. Definately looks like you will be wanting to work with a "donut" polygon for your easement that spans many parcels in different directions

That sounds about right. Essentially all I'm hoping to acomplish is creating a continuous easement polygon with a complex shape that spans accross all parcels partaking in any given block.

Re: Easements in the Fabric

ChristineLeslie — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:07:06 GMT

Hi Nick

So essentially what you need to do is create the easement donut polygon for each parcel in the subdivision and then merge them altogether. I found the easiest way to do this is to do the following:

1. Right-click the first parcel you want to work with and click Duplicate to duplicate it. The duplicate parcel is now in the Parcel Explorer window - unjoined.

2. Right-click the unjoined parcel in the Parcel Explorer and click Construction - the parcel will open in the map (or, it was easier for me to work with the parcel in a local coordinate system - standalone).

3. Enter your part connector line: This line will start from an outer corner and go inwards to create the inner boundary if the easement polygon. You will need to calculate this part connector line. It doesnt matter which corners you use. You can also use multiple part connectors in a sequence as well.

4. Starting from the end point of the part connector line, traverse in the inner boundary of the easement - see attached graphic

5. Build and keep all current

6. Join the easement parcel on top of its parent parcel

7. Unjoin and delete the inner, island parcel, you just want to keep the outer, donut easement parcel. I just selected the parcels and found which one the island parcel was using the Parcel Explorer

8. Then do the same for the adjacent parcels.

9.Then select the adjacent easement parcels and merge them
See attached graphic - Merged easement parcels

So there are a few steps to this workflow, but it is the only way I can think of to achieve want you want short of writing a utility/AddIn that automates some of these steps.

Does this help?

Christine

Re: Easements in the Fabric

ChristineLeslie — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 22:08:32 GMT

Oh yes and afterwards make sure to go and delete any unjoined parcels you no longer want/need. Dont want stuff to accumulate under unjoined...

Re: Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 17:56:16 GMT

Hey Christine,

It seems likely that we can incorporate much of your recommended work flows into our efforts to incorporate easements into our fabric in some fashion. However, the biggest hurdle we are facing is the inability for the fabric to merge the easement parcels into one. I've included an image of the error we keep getting over and over again. Ideally, we would like to merge all of the different encumbrance "types" from each plan into one polygon i.e. all general utility easements into one polygon, all access easements into one polygon, etc. If we can get this resolved, I think we can acutally move forward with our efforts. Have you guys come accross this issue with merging parcels? All I am doing is selecting them, and then right-clicking and chosing "merge." Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

- Nick Kenczka
GIS Specialist
City of Gillette, WY

Re: Easements in the Fabric

NickKenczka — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 18:33:33 GMT

Hi Nick

So essentially what you need to do is create the easement donut polygon for each parcel in the subdivision and then merge them altogether. I found the easiest way to do this is to do the following:

1. Right-click the first parcel you want to work with and click Duplicate to duplicate it. The duplicate parcel is now in the Parcel Explorer window - unjoined.

2. Right-click the unjoined parcel in the Parcel Explorer and click Construction - the parcel will open in the map (or, it was easier for me to work with the parcel in a local coordinate system - standalone).

3. Enter your part connector line: This line will start from an outer corner and go inwards to create the inner boundary if the easement polygon. You will need to calculate this part connector line. It doesnt matter which corners you use. You can also use multiple part connectors in a sequence as well.

4. Starting from the end point of the part connector line, traverse in the inner boundary of the easement - see attached graphic

5. Build and keep all current

6. Join the easement parcel on top of its parent parcel

7. Unjoin and delete the inner, island parcel, you just want to keep the outer, donut easement parcel. I just selected the parcels and found which one the island parcel was using the Parcel Explorer

8. Then do the same for the adjacent parcels.

9.Then select the adjacent easement parcels and merge them
See attached graphic - Merged easement parcels

So there are a few steps to this workflow, but it is the only way I can think of to achieve want you want short of writing a utility/AddIn that automates some of these steps.

Does this help?

Christine

Hey Christine,

Most of your suggested work flows seem to work pretty well in those instances where there are simple straight-lined segments following lot lines. However, the difficulties we are having are when an easement follows a curve and then merges back into a straight segment (see attachment). A cul-de-sac is a perfect example. When you parallel offset the curves then follow that up with a straight segment it doesn't seem to connect therefore making it impossible to construct those polygons. How is it that we can construct our easement polygons if the lines are not connecting? Any Ideas? Thanks in advance!

- Nick Kenczka
GIS Specialist
City of Gillette, WY